Law and Order in Exile Communities in Early Modern Norfolk

Abstract

In November 1565, Queen Elizabeth issued Letters Patent permitting thirty textile masters from the Low Countries to settle in Norwich and practice their trade. By early 1566, two language communities, one Dutch and the other French, had been established, each with its own church. However, in the wake of the Iconoclastic Fury in the Low Countries, which began in August 1566, many Calvinists left their homes and moved to Norwich. By 1568, the number of exiles in the town exceeded 2000. This led to tensions between the exile community and local people. Alongside a raft of regulations setting limits on the exiles’ commercial activities, the local authorities asked the Dutch and French communities to elect officials to maintain order within their communities and to act as a bridge in relations with the Anglophone community. These officials, known as politicke mannen in Dutch and hommes politiques in French, were elected annually for over 150 years. This article examines how they kept order within their communities and how they maintained relations with the local authorities, above all the mayor and the town council. It does so using correspondence and two minute-books of the weekly meetings of these officials in the town's Guildhall. Furthermore, the article examines how this ad hoc solution to the sudden influx of migrants provided a template for the maintaining of law and order in other English towns with significant exile communities.